RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31521, 8 November 1967, Page 31

RANDOM REMINDER

PRACTICAL VIEW

A form of entertainment which has always enjoyed popularity, but which in recent times seems to have reached a new peak is Taking the Family to the Gardens. We are not expert in the varying merits of the world’s many botanical gardens, but we think the Christchurch one is beaut. So do a lot of other people. They go there in droves, herding their children along like sheepdogs, trying to stop them removing the goldfish from their natural habitat, and in general making a serious attempt to preserve the place in its present handsome state. But parts of the .gardens

tend to become crowded. And on a recent Sunday, everyone seemed to discover, at the same time, a strong desire to inspect the cactus house. Whether they were drawn there by the prospect of seeing something of the cercus, the echinocactus or the opuntia families—to show how well we have done our homework—we do not know. Perhaps the prospect of there being an unlicensed Mexican cactus pegote, or lophophora williamsii and lewinii had them there in such large numbers. But it was an orderly crowd, until there was a very minor mishap among the members of one familiy, consisting of

father, looking at his watch, mother, looking anxiously at her charges, a son and two small daughters. One of the girls stumbled a little and her mother said she should be careful because it would not be nice to fall into a cactus plant. The shrill, piping voice of the six-year-old cut clean through the murmured expressions of admiration and the muted technical discussions going on all about. “It would be all right” she announced to the entire assembly “if your bottom was itchy and needed scratching."